Joseph
Lyons quotes from Chaiken, 1985, (p.8) "The shift of police service
delivery to the private sector is taking place in basically four
ways: 1) default; 2) accommodation and cooperation; 3) enabling
legislation; and 4) by contract" (Chaiken, 1987, p. 8). Default
transfers occur when the government does not meet a pressing need for
law enforcement services, leaving private companies to fill the
vacuum. For example, affluent neighborhoods which experience a rash
of crime often feel they have to provide more protection than thepolice
can provide. They then contract with a private security for armed
security patrol.

An
example of this was in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. After
several drive by shootings
and an armed robbery, the neighbors organized to contract with Westec Security
for $85 a month per resident for an armed guard patrol 24 hours a
day.

Accommodation
and cooperation occurs when the police informally rely on private
security personnel to perform tasks they prefer not to do; in return,
the public police
provides needed services such as responding expeditiously to calls
for assistance
from the private security personnel. For example, private security companies
are providing security and shelters for the homeless in New York
City. A provision
of this unpleasant service allows officers to spend their time in
police functions,
and when fights or other incidents occur at the shelter, they respond expeditiously
to those calls (Chaiken, 1987).

Sounds
benign enough. But there is more. And, these were the old trends
from the 1980's. We, the public, have been like frogs in a pan of
water where the fire is slowly increased to the point that we don't
realize we are being boiled alive. These old trends were just the
beginning of what is now being revealed as a nightmare that may
ultimately be exposed as a corporate police state that is now in the
making and becoming more powerful. Perhaps we frogs can awaken to
the nightmare awaiting us? Or is it already too late?

The
way this frog effect was orchestrated by the corporations was and is
beautiful! The general population was easily manipulated into
allowing for corporate policing due to reported inefficiencies of the
existing public police departments brought on by budgetary cuts that
enabled legislation passed in several states that allows specific
types of private security personnel limited police powers. For
example, in some cases, campus police at private colleges and
universities and retail security personnel not only have arrest
powers in case of theft from their employers, but they can also book
an alleged offender and testify in court as the arresting officer
(Chaiken, 1987). Sounds benign enough. Private companies helping
overworked and understaffed police?

Contracts
between government agencies and private security companies for a specific
task have become so commonplace that they are beginning to blur
traditional distinctions
between private and public providers. Public police agencies are, in
some areas,
entering into contracts to provide special or additional police
services to private organizations
or neighborhoods on a fee basis (Chaiken, 1987).

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What
has this led to? Gary Johnson, Presidential Candidate through
Liberatarian Party states it beautifully with his prediction that "we
will find ourselves with a heightened police state and our military
intervention is not going to cease...Shoot first, ask questions
later."

Could
he be on target with this statement? Could the privatized police
force be an instrumental piece to taking away of citizens rights for
the sake of corporate domination? Our government has already been
taken over by the corporate industrial elites. Isn't the
privitization of the police just another movement in this holographic
trend of privitizing everything, including schools, medical care and,
closer to the issue, prisons (see
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/private-prisons.htm).

In
this same vein, policing some of the most dangerous US cities has
quickly become the newest line of business for many private
companies, which have already replaced police officers in cities from
Portland Oregon to Baltimore Maryland.

This
phenomenon now runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank
security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act
more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, we now find
ourselves pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the
streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is a cause for
concern, especially because of the more controversial issues
surrounding the role of private military and security companies
abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, e.g., Halliburtin.
(http://costanzo.org/Rex/Commentary/cheney_halliburton_circle.htm).

Cities
have been turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons.
Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget
deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more
cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Furthermore,
cities often have an overstretched force that cannot respond to
increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix
and an easy force multiplier.

But
the question we must pose is this: Is it ok that we have private
companies, in many cases giant corporations, running our lives in
just about all arenas: edcuation, law enforement, the food we eat,
and our medical care? The movie Corporation did a wonderful job of
linking the behavior of corporations to the DSM-IV diagnosis of
sociopathic personality disorder. (see trailer at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3wyaEe9vE).
Is this what you want running the schools that are educating your
children? Do you want these people policing your neighborhood? Do
you want them in all arenas of your life, what you eat, the clothes
you wear, what you do in bed? They already dictate your medical
care, your work environment, and the economy. They have judges and
politicians in their back pockets, and they have your kids under
their thumb in the school and in the violent games being played to
entice them into the warrior mode. Is this what we want? We are
allowing sociopaths to wrap their gruesome hands around the throats
of our kids! Meanwhile we work hours on end and worry about paying
the bills racked up by the corporations to keep us slaves.

How
do we become independent of this Monster? It isn't a pile of
independently operating monsters. It is one Monster composed, as all
of us are, of several billion cells. Yet, as we are billions of
cells opearting as one person, then so is the Monster. Begin by
starving the monster. Buy your food from local businesses, not from
grocery chains. Grow your own. Empower yourself in community.
Begin a movement towards community based schools and get the
corporations out of your kids' lives. You be on the board of that
school and you take charge of the upbringing of your child. Empower
yourself, empower your community. The future generations call out to
you. Be creative. The movement must be diverse, not standardized.
Make it so diffuse that it can never be killed.

Burl is an avid writer and publishes to OpEd News. He is author of "Sophia's Web: A Passionate Call to Heal Our Wounded Nature." As of this writing, Burl is planning to self-publish the book. Alongside his wife, Burl co-hosts an on line radio (more...)